The retrocession of Louisiana to France in 1800 and its sale to the United States in 1803 generated a flurry of books about the territory by French authors. Some, such as Berquin-Duvallon’s
Vue de la Colonie Espagnole du Mississippi, were inspired by the prospect of a revived French-American empire. Others, such as Charles César Robin’s
Voyage dans l’intérieur de la Louisiane, were written after the transfer of authority to the United States.

Berquin-Duvallon’s account, which reads like an advertisement aimed at refugee planters from Saint-Domingue, contained details about Louisiana’s soil conditions, climate, geography, labor force, and the suitability of the region for sugar, cotton, indigo, and tobacco plantations. Perhaps in response to growing abolitionist sentiment, Berquin-Duvallon claimed that he was opposed to slavery in principle, but that he nonetheless viewed it as a “necessary evil,” essential for the economic survival of the colony.

Little is known about Robin, a political moderate and firm supporter of Napoleon’s imperialist impulses. Like Berquin-Duvallon, his three-volume work also contained considerable detail on the natural history, geography, customs, agriculture, commerce, and industry of Louisiana, as well as a full volume on Martinique. In contrast to Berquin-Duvallon, Robin believed that indentured servitude was a better alternative to slave labor in the Americas. He did not call for the abolition of slavery, but he was an early advocate of extending full civic rights to freed slaves and their descendants.

Like other spokesmen for France’s overseas interests, Berquin-Duvallon hailed the “common good” and “common interest” that would be promoted, after a decade of war and disrupted overseas trade, by a revived French-American empire.

Berquin-Duvallon’s Vue de la Colonie Espagnole du Mississippi was written in anticipation of the French resumption of control over Louisiana. This map, which the author included in his volume, reflects Napoleon’s assimilation of Spanish Florida, as well as Louisiana, into his larger Western design.

Charles César Robin’s Voyages dans l’intérieur de la Louisiane was published in 1807. The following year Robin wrote to Napoleon, then emperor, urging him to occupy Florida, which he believed could serve as a base for a renewed French American empire.

Jacquemin’s Mémoire sur la Louisiane reached the Paris market in 1803, just as French policy toward that colony took an unexpected turn. A longtime missionary to French Guiana and former bishop at Cayenne, Jacquemin concluded his work with a flattering petition to Napoleon, proposing that Louisiana be renamed La Napoléone. Like Robin, Jacquemin also proposed a system of indentured servitude as the best means for populating Louisiana with European-born French.

The refugee planter from Saint-Domingue, Baudry des Lozières, wrote his Voyage à la Louisiane (1802) in anticipation of Napoleon's revived French-American empire. Indeed, the first sentence of his preface states : "We [French] are going to retake possession of Louisiana [...]." Des Lozières' account lacked the detailed ethnographic observations of earlier writers such as Dumont de Montigny or Le Page du Pratz. And, although the author provided a history of French and Spanish presence in Louisiana, in the end he was far more concerned with the future economic exploitation of Louisiana and the future of French colonialism.